News - Local News

POSTED: Saturday, Apr. 11, 2009

State working to help improve troubled water systems in rural areas

The water supplies that serve more than 1,000 Whatcom County residents have been tainted with nitrates for years, but there is new optimism that solutions may be on the way.

The Washington Department of Health reports that 892 permanent residents and 257 seasonal residents, including farm workers, are served by wells that consistently show nitrate levels above the 10 parts-per-million state standard for drinking water. That makes the water potentially harmful to infants, pregnant women, the elderly and anyone with a weakened immune system.

Delta Water Association, serving 420 people in the Pangborn Road area northeast of Lynden, is the largest water system on the state's problem list. Its water has exceeded the nitrate standard for at least 10 years.

Terry DeValois, an association board member, said state law requires the association to provide quarterly health advisories to its customers, who appear to have gotten used to the situation. DeValois said only two customers showed up for the association's last annual meeting.

"We drink bottled water here," DeValois said.

But there's good news: The water association will be opening bids soon on a project to drill a new, deeper well that should provide lower-nitrate water that can be blended with the water from two shallower existing wells to give customers something that meets the state standard when they turn on their faucets.

If all goes well, association customers should be getting better water some time in 2009.

Derek Pell, a civil engineer in the northwest regional office of the Department of Health, said the state agency has been working patiently with Delta and other rural Whatcom County water systems to find solutions.

"If somebody is egregiously trying not to address a problem, we do have the authority to levy penalties and fines," Pell said.

But that hasn't been the case in Whatcom County, he added. The associations have been looking for cleaner water sources, and the area's labor camps provide bottled drinking water to their workers during the harvest season.

The northern part of the county is prone to nitrate problems because the Sumas-Abbotsford Aquifer that provides water to the area is relatively shallow, and there is no layer of clay above it to block surface contamination, Pell said. That leaves the aquifer vulnerable to nitrate contamination from manure, fertilizer and septic systems.

The underground water in the county flows slowly down from British Columbia, where some of the contamination oozes in before the water crosses the border. Tests of the water near the northern county line often show levels around seven parts per million, Pell said.

If surface contamination could be stopped, Pell said the aquifer's nitrate levels would slowly drop, but eliminating sources of surface pollution in an intensive agricultural area is a tall order. Nitrate levels have been creeping up, not down, over the years.

Steve Jilk, general manager of Whatcom County Public Utility District No. 1, said smaller water districts are in a tight spot, because new wells or treatment systems are expensive, and they have few customers to share those expenses.

Some of those districts could eventually get better water by hooking up to the Lynden or Sumas municipal systems.

Jilk said the PUD has a $32,000 grant in hand from the Department of Health to study the feasibility of connecting some of the northernmost associations to Sumas, which has a good-quality water supply from its wells.

Associations farther south could potentially get connected to Lynden, which draws and treats water from the Nooksack River. But Lynden's right to increase its take of river water is the subject of complex and protracted negotiations involving state agencies and tribal governments, and the associations can't expect help from that quarter until that matter is resolved.

Richard Grout, manager of the Bellingham field office of the Washington Department of Ecology, said there are hopeful signs on that front too.

"The prognosis actually looks pretty good," Grout said. "We're making progress in trying to work out an agreement that would get us there."